52 Ancestors #1 Start – Isaac Whimpey (1827-1912)

Amy Johnson Crow on her website has introduced a new series of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks series. Although I did start a 52 Ancestors series last year, I have decided to abandon that series, and start from scratch for the new year.

For this first post, the topic is Start. This is appropriate because I had wanted to do a genealogy do-over last year, and had made a few false starts. Since I have just had to replace my computer, this seems a good time to retry the genealogy do-over.

I currently have a World Plus subscription to Ancestry, which expires at the end of March. Since I’m not sure that I will be able to afford to renew the subscription, at least not the full World subscription, I am going to start with the branches of the family from the United States and Canada.

My starting person is therefore Isaac Whimpey. Isaac was the brother of my 2x great grandfather Joseph Whimpey. While Joseph migrated to Australia with his wife Margaret, brother John, and John’s wife Caroline in 1841, Isaac had migrated to the United States in 1866.

As part of my genealogy do-over, I first needed to go through my old files, and pull out any documents for this line that it would be difficult or expensive to replace. Since most of the information I have for this line I found online, this meant that the only documents I needed to pull out were:

A copy of Isaac’s marriage certificate for his marriage to Mary Lewis

The birth certificate for Isaac’s eldest son, Isaac Lewis Whimpey, that I obtained from the UK General Register Office in 2005.

The copy of Isaac’s marriage certificate had been sent to my dad by LaRae Whimpey Eddington and Lela Whimpey Russon. LaRae and Lela were sisters, and were the daughters of John Newbern Whmpey and Irene Peterson. John was the son of Isaac Lewis Whimpey (the eldest son of Isaac).

The other documents LaRae and Lela sent me I am putting aside to check after I have finished redoing my research, apart from adding the basic birth, death and marriage details to my new family tree.

I have the paid versions of both RootsMagic 7 and Legacy Family Tree Version 9. I have been experimenting with how the sources appear on Ancestry using a gedcom created from RootsMagic, a gedcom created from Legacy, and the sources created using TreeShare between RootsMagic and Ancestry.com. I found that I prefer the sources from a gedcom from Legacy. I prefer to use Legacy as my main family tree program, but how do I keep my Ancestry Public Member Tree up to date? In the past I have been uploading a new Gedcom and replacing my tree, but Randy Seaver on his Genea-musings blog has explained that “Other Sources” are not indexed by Ancestry. Since I also want to download as many records as possible in the next three months, my process is

Work on one branch of the family at a time, and add all the “other sources” I already have for this branch to my new Legacy Family Tree database.

Export the branch of the family I am working on as a Gedcom file, and upload this to a new Ancestry Public Member Tree

Search Ancestry, Fold3, and Newspapers.com, and attach the records to my Public Member Tree.

Use TreeShare to download the updated file to RootsMagic, with all the attached media and sources.

I have now completed these steps for Isaac Whimpey, and this is the information I have for him.

Isaac Whimpey was born 6 June 1827 at Frome, Somerset, England. He was baptized 30 Jun 1827 at Frome St John. His parents were William Whimpey and Elizabeth Clements

Isaac appeared on the 1841 census with his parents at Frome Selwood.

On 3 January 1842, when he was 14 years old, he was charged at the County Sessions of Somerset with larceny. He had 2 convictions. He was imprisoned for 6 weeks and whipped.

By 1847, he was living in Wales, and he married Mary Lewis on 4 July 1847 at the parish church in the parish of Llanelly, district of Crickhowell, county of Brecon. He was a bachelor of full age, and was living at Twyn Blaennant. He was working as a miner. His father William was also a miner.

The 1851 census shows Isaac and his wife Mary, and their eldest son Isaac were living at Llanelly, Breconshire, Wales. Isaac’s brother William was also with them.

By the 1861 census, Isaac and Mary had 5 more children: John born 1852, William born 1854, Mary Jane born 1857, Lewis born 1859, and Ruth born 1860. The family were living in Bedwas, Monmouthshire.

In 1866, Isaac migrated to the United States. He sailed from Liverpool, England, on the “John Bright” arriving in New York on 6 June 1866. His wife and children sailed the following year.

The 1870 census shows Isaac was living at Salem, Columbiana, Ohio. The rest of the household were Eliza age 42, Isaac age 20, John age 17, William age 15, Mary age 14, Lewis age 11, Ruth age 10, Rachel age 8, and Lemuel age 4. His wife Mary had died, and he had married Eliza. The information LaRae and Lela sent dad shows that Isaac divorced Eliza and sent her back to Wales, because her children didn’t get along with her.

Isaac then married Elizabeth Callaway, the widow of Henry Butt, on 14 December 1870 in Tuscarawas County, Ohio.

Isaac and Elizabeth appear on the 1880 census in Tuscarawas, Stark County, Ohio. Also in the household were daughter Rachael age 17, son Samael age 14, son Jessie age 11, son Joseph age 8, daughter Maggie age 5 and Elizabeth age 3.

By 1889, Isaac and Elizabeth had moved to Utah, and their marriage was solemnized at Sanpete, Utah, on 10 July 1889.

The 1900 census shows Isaac and Elizabeth were living at American Fork, Utah. Their son Joseph age 28, and a granddaughter Cora Whimpey, age 14, were with them.

Isaac died 9 August 1912 at Lehi, Utah, and was buried 12 August 1912 at the Lehi City Cemetery.

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